The Secrets Of The Owls
by Avese23
Summary: It is 1995 and there is no harder time to be an owl or her human. Rose is the youngest student in all of Hogwarts which makes keeping tense friendships very difficult. In order to please Rose, Sinrose delivers a parcel that was meant for a school owl. A wild adventure seems like the perfect way to prove oneself- but maybe being at Hogwarts is the only way to truly help after all?


**Notes and Disclaimer;** this story links to my Rose Zeller one. I actually wrote it before Rose Zeller. In the earlier version Jarred was named Ben, but when I forgot what I had named him I chose the name Jarred- instead giving the name Ben to an owl. This chapter takes place in Chapter 14 of The Order of the Phoenix titled Percy and Padfoot. The exchange between Harry and Cho is taken straight from the book. I do not own Harry Potter (duh) this is all fan fiction taken from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series (may she continue to be awesome).

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DungBombs:

Sinrose flexed her wings. One of her golden brown feathers accidently brushed Tendril, the tawny owl to her right. Tendril gave a hoot of annoyance and nipped one of Sinrose's tail feathers. She felt it unfair that Tendril was complaining about space- when she could just fly over to the other side of the owlery to get some room. At the moment, Sinrose, Tendril, and a snowy owl named Hedwig were the only owls who were awake. It was early morning and most of the owls were fast asleep after a long night of hunting.

Unfortunately, Rose (her human companion), had left her next to Tendril and Hedwig again- even though the last time that had happened she had hissed angrily at her. So she was stuck with grouchy Tendril, and stuck up Hedwig until she could. Unlike Tendril, Hedwig and Sinrose had humans who looked after them. For some reason, this meant they shouldn't leave the nest they were placed in. This made little sense to her when one of the owls, an ancient Great Gray Owl named Errol had explained it to her. _Why couldn't they just go wherever they wanted and then come in when they were called for?_ Sinrose had wondered. Errol had muttered something about the short sightedness of the human species and then gone back to sleep. Typical.

Sinrose tried to ignore the owls on either side of her- but found it extremely difficult. The older females weren't exactly what one might call "friendly". Tendril was aggressive and hot tempered, and Hedwig was just as bad. She was always either upset or bragging about how _she_ was the lucky, lucky owl who was chosen by Harry Potter, famous Harry Potter, how Rose was nothing compared to the boy who did merlin knows what. Hedwig was terribly mistaken. You see, Rose was in hufflepuff and her older brother Jarred was in ravenclaw. Together they represented nature, and wit, and everything owls lived for.

The other owls didn't seem to share her view of things. But she didn't care, it wasn't up to her to show them what true honor was. It wouldn't be so bad if she could get some sleep once in awhile. Hedwig was Diurnal and usually busy or asleep whenever most of the owls were awake. But when it was night- she was wide awake chatting with Tendril, whom didn't seem to sleep at all. She supposed lack of sleep was why Tendril and her were always grumpy- yet the tawny owl didn't even try to be nice. The day Tendril apologize for being bratty for no reason at all- was the day Hedwig replaced her famous companion with Roonil Wazlib, or whatever the name of the red haired boy that always followed Harry around. He had an owl too- a miniature scops owl named Pigwidgeon (nicknamed Pig, a nickname Sinrose thought he definitely deserved.) He was as obnoxious as a pig, and was clearly the runt of his flock of owlets. Sinrose doubted he was much use as he was small enough to be an elf owl (though she'd never seen one up close before).

Sinrose was pleasantly surprised when the door to the owlery suddenly flew open and Rose ran in, clutching a bag of what suspiciously smelled of dung bombs. She approached where Sinrose was perched and Sinrose expectantly extended a leg. To her horror Rose shook her head and instead tied the bag to Tendril. Sinrose opened her beak to let out an indignant cry, but it was covered up by Hedwig's hoot of bitter amusement. Her mandible snapped closed, and she turned to stare at Rose, feeling quite betrayed. "Sorry, Sindy," Rose muttered apologetically "If I used you Filch would track these back to me in an instant."

There was a sound of footsteps and Rose gasped, flung Tendril into the air, and then scuttered out- slamming the door with a silent thud that was only loud enough to hurt the ears of a creature with a highly developed auditory system. Like owls for instance, they would be affected by the noise, it would really hurt. Not wanting to embarrass herself further, she merely closed her big round brown eyes in response, and then slowly inched into Tendril's empty nest to distance herself from her neighbor. For, Hedwig was less subtle about her discomfort.

Luckily, her rude comments were cut off by the arrival of someone entering the owlery. As Tendril was taking off- the door swung open again. Sinrose opened her eyes, hoping it was Rose with another- obviously much more important, as it was for her- package to be delivered. However, instead of Rose, it was Harry Potter! Sinrose turned away, in disgust. She was vaguely aware that most of the other owls were starting to awake, and all staring at her. "There you are," he told a triumphant Hedwig. "Get down here, I've got a letter for you."

With a low hoot she stretched her great white wings and soared down onto his shoulder. "Right, I know this says 'Snuffles' on the outside," he told her, giving her the letter to clasp in her beak. Then, without knowing exactly why, whispering, "but it's for Sirius, okay?"

Sinrose's ear tufts perked up. With her supreme owl hearing she had picked up the last bit without fault. Rose had told her all about Sirius Black. He was evil, almost as evil as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. What did Harry want with him? Sinrose knew Harry was nothing but trouble- his owl definitely was- though she would be deeply surprised if he was _evil_ _._ Hedwig blinked her mocking amber eyes once to communicate to Harry that she understood. "Safe flight then" Harry said, and Sinrose looked away to hide her jealousy.

 _She_ had no letter to deliver. A few moments later Sinrose heard the door to the owlery open once more. She kept her gaze on the opposite wall, but listened carefully. She heard the voices of Harry and a new voice. It belonged to a ravenclaw named Cho Chang that Rose often talked about- if Sinrose was remembering correctly she was related to Rose's best friend (well, best friend may be a stretch…) Orla Quirke. Of course, that wasn't saying much as they were both pureblood and all purebloods families had mixed at some point or another.

Anyway, Sinrose picked up snippets of their conversation. Harry was the first to speak- he greeted her with a nervous 'hi'. She replied back "Oh, hi! I didn't expect anyone else would be up this early-" Neither did Sinrose, however Cho seemed less upset by finding the owlery occupied- she even seemed delighted, though as anxious as Harry "...I only remembered 5 minutes ago, it's my mum's birthday."

Sinrose was getting awfully bored by the time Harry replied what must have been the first thing to pop into his head "Right...nice day."

A moment after he said this Sinrose felt hands grasp her leg. She panicked, didn't Cho know she wasn't a school owl? Then she realized her mistake- she was still in Tendril's nest! So, old Errol was right- bother, Sinrose would never live that down. Just then, an idea sunk in- a crazy one, but it still might work. Cho was asking _her_ to deliver a letter, this was her chance! It was disloyal but...maybe it would show Rose that she was trustworthy enough to deliver dungbombs. If she did well, that was, if she wasn't being stupid. Pushing away her doubts she let herself be coaxed onto Cho's arm, and started eavesdropping on their conversation again.

Cho rescued Harry from having to make his attempt at small talk less awkward by asking, "Hey, has Gryffindor got a new keeper yet?"

Harry, looking relieved but not the slightest bit less scared answered "Yeah, it's my friend Ron Weasley, d'you know him?"

"The tornado-hater?" Sinrose was perplexed at why Cho seemed so disgusted at this, tornados were _very_ dangerous natural disasters "Is he any good?"

"Yeah, I think so" Harry said "I didn't see his tryouts though, I was in detention".

Sinrose was growing rather uncomfortable, the parcel was only half attached to her legs. Cho looked furious, this somehow seemed to please Harry. "That Umbridge is _foul_ putting you in detention just because you told the truth about how-how-how he died"

Sinrose ignored the rest of Cho said. Rose had spoken to her fearfully. Apparently last year, at this very school, Harry Potter had been teleported to this spooky place and woken up some kind of overlord who had died a while back. Rose couldn't give her a name, apparently her parents never spoke of him, and that everyone was still very frightened about him, and couldn't even speak his name out loud. Rose had also reassured her that despite the rumors- the dark wizard wasn't really back. She said that that was why everyone hated Harry, because he was always lying. Apparently this 'Cho' thought otherwise, Sinrose would have to ask her why sometime. Suddenly, the Owlery door opened again, but from the heavy footsteps- she knew right away it wasn't Rose. In came a gray haired man with cold pale eyes and a crooked smile. He had obviously been running, as his thin hair was disheveled, his jowls were aquiver, and there were purple patches on his sunken, veined cheeks. Right on cue Mrs. Norris came trotting at his heels. Sinrose flinched as the evil feline monster gazed hungrily up at the owls. She was the second least popular with the owls, she saw Jarred's owl; Ignotus hide behind his best friend. His friend, Ben a barn owl slightly larger than herself, snapped his beak menacingly at Mrs. Norris. He was the only one brave enough to do so, the rest of the birds just just restlessly shuffled their wings. It was usually Hedwig and Tendril who protected them from that nuisance of a mammal. "Aha!" Filch took a flat-footed step towards Harry, his pouchy cheeks trembling with anger "I've had a tip-off that you are intending to place a massive order for Dungbombs!"

Sinrose froze. How could he…? Was Rose in trouble? Sinrose tried to free herself from Cho's grasp but it was too strong. Neither Cho nor Harry was paying any attention to her, they were both glaring at Filch. Harry folded his arms and stared at the caretaker, asking where he had heard that. Filch replied only that he had his sources, vague. It seemed that Harry was winning the argument because after fighting with Cho, Filch left leaving only an empty threat behind. Luckily his furry companion left as well, but not before giving a longing look to the owls. Sinrose wanted to hiss, but she seemed at a loss for words. Filch was onto Rose's trail, and there was nothing she could do about it. After, Cho and Harry finished talking about who might have tipped of Filch, Cho finally finished fixing the parcel on Sinrose's other leg. Sinrose felt herself shaking and tried to stay calm as Cho took her to the window. An owl was sworn to protect their human. Unfortunately they were also bound (literally and metaphorically) to their delivery, and the latter over ruled the prior. So, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, took off to deliver the letter to Cho's mum, all hopes of impressing Rose, long gone. It would be a long flight.


End file.
